Unbloggishly, here we read from the top down - so the current month continues here at the top!

Two Tombs, Two Jails - August 17th

Most of my usual crew of characters managed to fit in their attendance allowance half hours before coffee this morning - and then it was time to get a bit more use out of those 24-hour platinum refining stones that MrChuckNorris, my warmaster titan, had started just after lunch yesterday.

The idea was to fit in two power hours, using platinum adrenaline, crit, and berserker potions, plus a platinum blessed iris, and of course individual experience boosters, with the second hour coinciding with the eleven to twelve (UK time) "dungeon time" hour and its 50% boost. So, Chuck, along with Kaerella, went to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-4, and reached the anubis spear man room at around seven minutes to ten - coffee had been rather early today.

The first hour went smoothly, with 35 experience boosters used; as expected, the anubis spear men do take longer to kill than the ancient grey mummies, but they do give 18% more experience per kill, so that Chuck gained 35.45%, taking him into level 93. There were about seven minutes until the "dungeon time" was due to begin, so Chuck fought another spear man unboosted, and, without the potions it did take a while, I think he only killed the one, for 0.12%, before the hour began, and he "potted up" again.

This hour did have slight problems, because of a pair of assassin-type rogues called BluEEyeS, a member of the GoRomaniaGo guild, and SpargTotCeVad...the trouble was mainly from BluEEyeS, who briefly ks'd a couple of times, and did some strange stuff with luring and death motion. A couple of other people did stop in the room to fight spear men, but, thankfully, moved on when Chuck asked them to. "Guys, this room really only has enough spear men for two people - can you move on a little further into the Tomb?" Face it, when Chuck Norris asks such a thing, the natural response is to do as requested.

Still, Chuck managed to use another 34 experience boosters, and added another 47.02%, but, as the rogues were still around when noon came up, I was glad to leave, rather than be starting another hour there. In all Chuck added 82.55%, along with 2162 pet points for his drake. Kaerella fought four or five sphinx fighters, just to take them off Chuck's back, and otherwise just relied on the combat party bonus, so she added 6.27%. They each gained a couple of skill points. Kae's polar bear cub went up by 16.46%.

Kaerella continued her supporting role during the afternoon, teamed up this time with MistressDomina on Auzura-5, fighting the screaming zombies at the start of the Tomb of Theos, and doing her best to keep her gang of assistants alive. The night shadow Octfilipe29 joined our combat party for the second half of the session, which went on for about 2 hours and 40 minutes, so Kaerella was kept fairly busy using Party Heal to keep him healthy.

By the time my duo left, MistressDomina had earned 7.32%, and her drake had gained 2163 pet points; as the non-fighter Kaerella was up by 4.73%, and they had each earned 12 skill points. The polar bear cub had now reached level 32, adding 85.62%. The session was a bit longer than Kae's earlier one, but the difference in the amount of experience the poly gained is rather marked, proving that the screamies do die a lot more quickly than the boss-type spear men.

The evening session was split into two parts. I should have started a little sooner, but MistressSabina reached the third floor of Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4 about ten minutes after the "dungeon time" hour ended. Nobody else was there (though I passed Sorcerordave, one of MistressDomina's helpers, on floor two), so Sabina, in a solo party with RedRackham, who was doing a little pet-levelling on his drake, started to fight the beast flyers in the middle part of that level - using a platinum super skill pill.

MistressSabina did have to use the small HP recovery potions, and the occasional small health potion, while she battled the beast flyers, and their beast archer companions. By the end of the first hour, 136 skill points had been earned; by the end of the second hour, the total had risen to 268, so that was a useful boost, if a bit expensive. With her experience gain half-frozen, Sabina had gone up by just 9.50%, so potentially another nine or ten session like that would be possible, before level 47 is reached and the beast flyers start to give slightly less skill exp per kill. Her drake gained 2039 pet points.

Kaerella on Katar, my level 39 archer, was therefore almost a quarter of an hour late getting to Maargadum Jail on Katar-5 for the "dungeon time" hour - but 45 minutes of the 50% boost to experience was still good, as Kae is after experience, she already has plenty of skill points. Kaerella generally targeted the two-headed canines, and made good progress. Shortly before the end of the hour, while Kae was using the Lacarette wheel, a level 37 titan called roi90 dashed up, asked for a party, and then it was "heal me", "follow me", and "cover me"... he certainly needed the healing, but after that he just stood by the wall close to the entrance to the second room, and after a minute or two I left him there, and went back to the two-headed canines, carefully moving myself just out of compass range. The next time I checked, he'd moved on, perhaps heading down to floor three, and the party ended soon after that.

Kaerella added 25.66% experience, which was enough to get her into level 40, along with 448 pet points and 57 skill points. Kae teleported back to Merac, but there were no new quests available. In theory there is a level 40 quest to kill the spider boss monster Baal, but it's not one I'd look very hard for, as Baal is one of those magic attack types that tends to kill you rather speedily. There's a quest at 41 to kill some more gnoll soldiers, and then at level 42 the quests within Maargadum Jail begin.

Kaerella headed back to Randol, and went to the skills trainer. By increasing her constitution stat to 17, Kae was able to learn all five levels of Mind Training, increasing her magical resistance (evasion) by 25 for 276 skill points, and also, for 293 sp, the first five levels of Survival Training, increasing her health by 130 and her defence by 100. There are a couple of attack skills available at her level too, but they need more stat points in intelligence and dexterity - the next time Kae levels up she'll have enough dexterity for Slowshot, which halves one's target's speed for ten seconds, as well as doing damage, but Arrow of Silence, preventing the target from casting spells for twenty seconds, will have to wait a while.

So, it was a varied day: The Tomb of Theos on Auzura-4 with Chuck, and on Auzura-5 with MistressDomina, and then Maargadum Jail's third floor on Auzura-4 with MistressSabina, followed by its second floor on Katar-5 with Kaerella...and even some pet-levelling, so that it looks as if RedRackham's drake should just about reach level 39 by the end of the evening. Wednesday will be a little less active, and Thursday will probably only have an evening session, but after that, well, there should be some more time for adventuring. Assuming that the patch associated with tonight's weekly scheduled maintenance doesn't do anything too outlandish...

Dark Deeds in Merac - August 18th

There was a reasonably large patch to download this morning, and the patch notes had two triumphs to report. For Mondshine residents, that is, people who are level 140 and over, "the left side of the Chapel is now open... for real!" Also, at last the night shadow skill Soul Injection should be working. Conversations in the forum shoutbox, however, revealed that all was not perfect for Chapel-goers, as instead of you or your party having the place to yourself, presumably in an "instance", now the place is being shared, so that if someone else gets to the boss you need to complete your quest first, you are out of luck.

Apart from those two fixes, we are assured that Juno non-player characters who had moved out of their regular positions last week, with the botched new version of the map, are now back in their proper places. "The developers are currently working to fix the disconnect issue in Raid", we are assured, which is another Mondshine thing, and intriguingly "new content [is] expected within the next two weeks".

While I hadn't thought I would be able to do much actual playing in the morning, my characters got their attendance allowances sorted out, with a little herb-farming and stone-mining on the side. MrChuckNorris cuts an impressive figures in his 85/87 "Thunder" armour, and wielded his mining pickaxe with great flair. In the end, Kaerella on Katar was able to get to floor two of Maargadum Jail in good time for the eleven to twelve "dungeon time"; for some of the session she was partied with a level 34 knight called BritLover, who was a rather better partner than most such random team-ups. He went off to a different level for a while, but when he was in the first room, with its various canines, he fought hard, and did more than his share of the work - helped along by frequent healing from Kaerella.

By noon, Kaerella had gone up by 46.29%, and also got 88 skill points plus 805 pet points for her drake. She has passed the halfway point in level 40, which seemed pretty good going.

RedRackham had logged out last night still a little way short of getting his drake to 39, but he was online while Kaerella was in Maargadum, and the drake soon levelled up. He continued his work over the lunch break on Auzura-4, though he had to log out after that, to allow Auzura's Kaerella on.

Kaerella teamed up with MistressDomina for another trip to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5, where some of the usual people were already busy. The afternoon passed in the usual way there, including an occasion or two when somebody brought large mobs of screaming zombies, and the other local monsters, back onto us - but we generally survived, and Kaerella was able to take off the polar bear cub in good time when any menacing hordes approached.

One does have to decline a few requests for power-levelling, and people of about level 25 who want to be inside MD and Kae's party... but people at that level really ought to be farming their skill points in Prokion Temple. By the end of the session, with an equal party for a change, MistressDomina had gone up by just 3.93% in level 92, with her drake adding 1916 pet points. Kaerella, despite missing a couple of minutes from a "send error report?" crash, went up by 10.72% in level 90. They each gained 5 skill points, and the polar bear cub added 41.27%, reaching level 33.

Kaerella on Katar was back in action after the food break, in Katar-5's Maargadum Jail, while RedRackham did some more pet-levelling with the gnoll lancers on Auzura-4. This was a rather shorter session, just to make use of as much as possible of the "dungeon time" hour, so Kae just added 28.38%, 60 skill points, and 482 pet points, before logging out at about ten to six.

By the time the new hour began, MistressSabina, in a solo party with RedRackham, was in position on the third floor of Maargadum Jail, surrounded by the beast flyers - and as soon as the "dungeon time" ended, she started fighting, and popped a platinum super skill pill. When that one finished, she popped a second one, spending two hours farming skill points, and some useful loot, down there. It was pretty hectic, and quite a few small healing pots had to be used.

The skill point gain wasn't quite as good as on the previous occasion, however, just 135 in the first hour and 122 in the second hour, as what was happening on RedRackham's screen distracted me, and I had to give him some attention. I can now report that it costs 404,586 gold to "unseal" a level 39 drake, as I didn't notice the half-dozen or so gnoll soldiers being lured onto Red, and only saw them surrounding him and trying to kill him, after the drake had already died.

So, RedRackham had to return to the animal trainer to get the drake unsealed. He went back to the gnoll lancers after that - it looked to me as if the soldiers had managed to kill the other knight who had been pet-levelling there. I thought that would be the end of it, but before too long, the evil little scrote returned, and I saw that it was a mage called manisha - and she used exactly the same tactics that serina, on a different server, used, luring them in, and using a memory scroll to move herself a few yards away and break aggro. I unequipped Red's drake, which would look to the mage as if it had been killed - but she stayed around, and when I tried to move far enough away to lose the gnoll soldiers, as Red can't kill them very quickly, she followed, and brought them in again, so Red ended up returning to Merac Caron again.

As we were actually having double pet experience this evening, rather than give up, I decided that Red would just have to go to Maargadum Jail himself, so he ran down there from Merac Caron, and then hurried down to its fifth floor, passing MistressSabina. Thankfully he managed to avoid fighting any death mask soldiers, and started pet-levelling on the first death mask lancer - and had no more problems, so that by the end of the evening his drake was more than two-thirds of the way through level 39. Either serina/manisha doesn't know about pet-levelling on death mask lancers, or she hasn't found a way to foul it up. As memory scrolls don't work in dungeons, she wouldn't be able to use them to lose aggro after luring in the local death mask soldiers - she'd have to use a "return to village" scroll, so wouldn't be able to stay and watch the results of her evil-doing.

Anyway, 257 skill points isn't a huge decrease compared with 268 last time; MistressSabina went up by 9.12%, slightly less than last time, and got her pet drake 3681 pet points, thanks to the double pet experience event. The second platinum super skill pill ended just as the new "dungeon time" hour started...and, since as usual I had other business to attend to from eight until ten, Sabina logged out, though RedRackham was able to continue, in the comparative safety of Maargadum Jail, for the rest of the evening.

Just as I came back at ten, there was an announcement that "Elfnastysfriend's treasure trail event is starting now on A4 at Juno West gate", so out of interest, I was able to log Kaerella in to investigate. Elfy herself was riding a pale blue dragon, and led the group through much of Juno, dropping some prizes along the way. The only trouble was that she moved rather fast, and like most people I lost sight of her before long, so as events go it was a bit of a non-event. About the only loot I saw was five of something she'd mistakenly dropped on one of Juno's new unclimbable slopes. Still, it's good that she made the effort, I guess.

One Long Session - August 19th

The double pet experience was switched off last night before the end of RedRackham's time online, but his drake still made some useful progress. When he logged out its health was at 30%, as that's all you get when the animal trainer "unseals" it, so it would be nice to get it to level up again, and automatically go back to 100%, I thought.

Today I wasn't able to play properly until the evening, but I could at least get the usual half hours of attendance allowance sorted out. One character I didn't want to play, though, was MistressSabina - since she is currently focussed on farming skill points from the beast flyers in Maargadum Jail, extra experience is something she doesn't need. I didn't mind the 3% bonus for most of her session yesterday, but I don't want it to get much bigger than that. She could however log in for a few minutes to get rid of loot, as long as she's offline again within thirty minutes.

MrChuckNorris even managed to get 10,000 gold from a Pandora's Box, on his way back to town. He gave the Battle Roar 2 to a junior titan out there, HeavensWarLord, who admired his armour. "Your look - awesome!" He also said "I wish to be like you one day", which rather made Chuck's morning. MistressSabina did log in briefly after that, to make some room in her inventory, and was lucky enough to get five heaven stones from one of her five spins of the Lacarette wheel.

After that, RedRackham logged in, and hurried to the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4. for a bit of pet-levelling. He was able to keep going over lunch and through the afternoon, and the drake did manage to level up, returning it to 100% health.

The evening session saw MistressDomina and Kaerella, plus the polar bear cub, heading for the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5 again, and there isn't a whole lot more to say about it. Lots of familiar names were there, and a few newcomers. We arrived just in time for the boosted "dungeon time" hour for five until six, and were still hard at work during the next one, from eight to nine, and beyond - and from around seven a "Happy Hour" event meant that there was double experience and skill points too.

Level 92 is slow going for MistressDomina; but then, I'm not really attempting to level her up at present. For that she'd need to follow Chuck's example, and go to the anubis spear men, with pots and experience boosters etc. She added just 11.86%, and her drake gained 3910 pet points, while Kaerella, in the equal party, added 34.89% in level 90. They each gained 15 skill points, and the polar bear cub went up by 95.99%, which was just enough to get him into level 34.

There were times when there seemed to be masses of screaming zombies around, but I don't think any were brought in maliciously. Kaerella did unequip the poly a couple of times, to be safe, but generally all went smoothly. There was slight drama in the forum shoutbox, with some created-today accounts insulting the gamesages and GMs and generally spamming, but Aeria_ks1lent showed up pretty quickly, and got rid of them.

So, a rather short posting today. I doubt if I'll be able to play actively tomorrow morning, but there should at least be afternoon and evening sessions to report on then.

Cariae, Auzura and Katar - August 20th

The usual gang of characters had their half hours online in the morning, and after that I was able to send RedRackham down to the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail again, for a little pet-levelling. This time he didn't manage to sneak past the death mask soldier nearest to the entrance, and it took him rather a long time to kill it, as with a "maximum red" name, even with his +10 sword equipped his regular hit does around 42 to 48 damage there. Still, he eventually got 308 gold for his trouble.

The main part of the afternoon saw Barbarienne and Keerella head for the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4, where to my relief the place's "condition" seemed reasonable. Kee just stood in the corner of the anubis spear man room, with my Scra-Chi pet SkrappY equipped, while Barbarienne did two "power hours" using platinum adrenaline, berserker, and crit potions, plus a pbi per hour and experience boosters. We started about half an hour before the "dungeon time" hour of 50% extra experience, so Barb's two hours were both roughly half-and-half; I had the room to myself until just after the boosted hour began, when a royal knight called DuBlade arrived. He joined the combat party, which was useful, but left once the "dungeon time" was over.

In the first hour, Barbarienne went up by 18.00%, using 49 experience boosters, and in the second hour, another 15.45% was earned, using just 40 boosters - it's a mystery to me why there was such a big change to Barb's killing speed, but presumably the "condition" of the place changed a little. Keerella just added 0.81%, but she and Barb each gained 6 skill points - and Barb's drake got 2122 pet points.

There was still half an hour or so left before the food break, so MistressDomina and Kaerella headed out, not to the Tomb, but to the nearby grasslands on Auzura-4, just to see how well fighting the wafes there would level the polar bear cub. With MD fighting and Kae just tagging along, it was simple enough work to do, and the cub did add 22.24% experience. And after that little session ended, RedRackham headed for floor five of Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4, and the death mask lancer by the door there, though once again he did have to fight a death mask soldier first.

After the break, Kaerella on Katar went to Maargadum Jail, arriving there before the next "dungeon time" began, and staying for its first 50 minutes. The two-headed canines, and other monsters on the second floor, provided her with 31.85% experience, enough to get her into level 41, plus 77 skill points, and 636 pet points. But she had to leave before the hour was up - so that MistressSabina could have her two-hour session over on Auzura-4 slotted in between the end of that "dungeon time" hour and the start of the next one.

MistressSabina formed a solo party with RedRackham; there had been a knight on floor three when he had run through earlier, but luckily the beast flyers were free now, and, on Auzura-4, I didn't have any visitors. MistressSabina used two pssps, platinum super skill pills, and, while adding 9.38% experience, and getting exactly 2000 pet points, earned another 271 skill points. It was all fairly hectic work, unlike the much more laid-back approach one takes when fighting anubis spear men when every kill takes more than a minute. Here, I was killing about seven beast flyers per minute.

Once the two hour slot was over, Kaerella on Katar returned, to make use of all but the first few minutes of the new "dungeon time" - adding 31.66% more experience, 76 skill points, and 631 pet points. Back in Randol afterwards, as she now had enough stat points in dexterity, Kaerella was able to spend 293 skill points on all five available levels of Slow Shot, which for ten seconds halves a monster's movement speed - and hits with 310% power too. It ought to be useful if Kae goes out to visit the outdoor sphinx fighters and sphinx "speer" men, though it's rather a "poor relation" of the mage skill Curse, which may not slow down stuff quite as much, but lasts ten times as long.

RedRackham had continued his pet-levelling efforts - he used rather a lot of quality stones, but got the drake past the halfway mark in level 40. Once it levels up, it will become rather too greedy, so that will probably be as far as that particular drake goes.

More Time in the Tomb - August 21st

After coffee, as it was MistressBlaze's turn to log on for half an hour. I took her along to the less public of the two elite sphinx speer men and its friends, in the south-western uplands of Merac. At level 57 she didn't have much difficulty there - it was strange not to be in a dungeon, and thus be able to re-apply horse buffs when needed. In the thirty minutes she just added 7.03%, 8 skill points and 186 pet points.

Still, eleven o'clock UK time was looming on the horizon, when an hour of "dungeon time" would begin. If MistressBlaze couldn't take advantage of the extra 50% experience, since there is no dungeon designed for her level, Kaerella on Katar, at level 41, was eager to take over, and head for Maargadum Jail on Katar-5.

Kaerella headed straight for the canines room on the second floor, and set to work there; she was in a solo party led by somebody else who was also in Maargadum Jail, but at level 47 they were probably down with the beast flyers on the next floor. I did have to leave the solo party when the knight BritLover turned up, level 36 now; we formed a combat-type party, which helped things along, though he did leave before the end of the hour. There was no solo party available for the last few minutes, but on average Kae came out ahead I guess. She went up by 34.84%, and added 77 skill points, as well as 318 pet points.

RedRackham had been doing some pet-levelling while Kae was in action, and continued over the lunch break - but then he had to log out, to allow Barbarienne and Keerella to head for Cariae-4's Tomb of Theos again.

This time the spear man room was already being used by two people, but I only needed to go a few yards further, and set up at the first corner in the corridor. Keerella was perfectly safe there, after one sphinx fighter which had followed her was dealt with - and the two anubis spear men there were just about all Barbarienne needed, though very occasionally one of them would be about two seconds late in respawning.

Another archer, the level 98 Tinkerbel, arrived just before the "dungeon time" hour began, by which time Barb had already been fighting for 23 minutes, and asked to join the combat party. She went just around the next corner, and was almost always within range, so that gave us all a nice little boost while the hour was on. She had a level 97 bow, with a PRS to take it to +15, and so was killing a bit faster than Barb, with a better crit rate too, though with the crit potion Barb's crit stat was quite high enough to make just about every hit a critical one.

In the first of her two "power hours" Barbarienne added 19.75% off 47 experience boosters; and then, in the second hour, with slightly less of the "dungeon time" hour in it, she added 17.62%, using 49 experience boosters. Keerella just added 1.01%, while they each gained 6 skill points. Barb's drake gained 2122 pet points, and SkrappY, Keerella's Scra-Chi pet, went up by 5.96%.

Back in Randol afterwards, Keerella traded some gold across to Barbarienne, as well as her recent loot, which, along with her own, Barb passed on to my Cariae merchant, MistressDomina. Now that she had enough gold, Barbarienne was able to get her new level of the passive skill Survival Training, adding 50 health and 20 defence, for 1300 skill points and 80 million gold. That just leaves her enough sp for level 110's second level of Fatal Blow, which will cost 1100 skill points and 100 million gold, and make that skill rather more useful, though it does take a comparatively long time to recharge. After that, it's either some dedicated skill point farming, or the release of the sp currently preserved in her "special" skills. Over the break, RedRackham fitted in a little more pet-levelling.

For the evening, MistressDomina and Kaerella, plus the polar bear cub, headed for the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5 again - and stayed for about 4 hours and 40 minutes. For most of the time MD and Kae had an equal party, though we changed to combat for a few minutes to team up with Morta, the level 90 titan, who helped speed things up by bringing a few screaming zombies back at a time. For the last half hour or so we went back into combat mode, along with a level 92 pair, Litz and the rogue SliceAndDice. A mage called XxTAFUxTUGAxX brought back some nice big mobs of screaming zombies and assorted mummies, and our large assorted group managed to deal with them. There usually seemed to be one mummy that kept regenerating its health, until we stopped any rogues using Snare on it.

Earlier the ranger Cherena had spotted a pair of "speed hackers" - and when she pointed it out, I could see that the low-level archer in question's arrow-shooting arm was indeed moving at a furious speed. Neither of us had the means to take a video of this, but Cherena took a screenshot and reported it, so that the GMs can check their logs and see what was going on. The sorcerer godofbeasts dropped a few items for people, though I don't think he stayed around all that long - he was telling people that they should "tip" MistressDomina as they left, but I managed to veto that idea. Everyone worked together rather well...

By the end of the evening. both Kaerella and the polar bear cub had levelled up. There is actually some sort of "raffle" today, in which levelling up gives you entries, so maybe Barbarienne or Kaerella are in with a chance... 108 and 91 chances, respectively. MistressDomina herself added 11.19% and 14 skill points, and earned 3719 pet points for her drake, while Kae gained 22.02% and 13 skill points. The polar bear went up by 93.48%, getting into level 35.

Tomorrow's playing time may be shortened a bit, as there will be a 100% rebate offer running on up to ten spins of the "Loot Wheel" per account...so spinning the wheel, and downloading items to appropriate servers, may cut into my actual adventuring time. Still, it should be worth it; I see the wheel currently offers a chance of both the polar bear collar and the jaguar collar. Curiously, one option is a package of four heaven stones, while the in-game Lacarette wheel, played using tokens that are just picked up as loot, has as one of its top prizes a package of five heaven stones...

A Quick Spin - August 22nd

Sunday morning does tend to be a bit shorter than most mornings, but I managed to get my usual crew of characters their attendance allowance. I also was able to get the "ten fully-rebated spins of the Loot Wheel" sorted out - it's handy to have multiple accounts that all have a few aeria points, as the deal was ten such spins per account. I got rather more mana stealers and strong medicines than I'd have liked, and absolutely no pet jaguar or pet polar bear collars, but I did get some experience boosters, skill point boosters, heaven stones, platinum blessed irises, power potions, and so on, which got downloaded onto Cariae, Auzura, and in one case Katar characters. MistressDomina on Cariae, my merchant character there, got most of the local goodies moved across to her, and so is just about ready to try and do some fund-raising at some point.

After lunch, it seemed a good idea to have Barbarienne and Keerella head for the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4 for a two-hour session, to include the two o'clock to three o'clock, UK time, "dungeon time" boosted hour. The square anubis spear man room was already being used by a pair of night shadows, so Barbarienne took up the same position as yesterday, on the first corner of the corridor after that. Keerella did have to battle one sphinx fighter that followed them, but otherwise she just stood in the corner, occasionally feeding SkrappY the "freshly baked bread" that such pets need.

In the first hour, Barbarienne killed 39 anubis spear men, using 39 experience boosters, 28 of them before the "dungeon time" hour began, and added just 12.97%, but the second hour was a bit better, with 48 boosters used, 39 inside "dungeon time", getting Barb another 19.91%...figures that do rather indicate that the place's condition did vary, though a total of 32.88% across the two hours does seem about right. Keerella just added 1.27%, while SkrappY added 3.20%, and Barb's drake got 2120 pet points. Barb and Kee each gained 8 skill points, helped along by the fact that yesterday's "Turbo", which had apparently been 75% extra skill exp, was still running.

That 75% extra skill exp meant that, for the last part of the afternoon, it seemed worth taking MistressSabina to the beast flyers on Auzura-4, so she and RedRackham went there together. The horse buffs Sabina applied before they left Merac Caron lasted just long enough for Red to kill that death mask soldier rather more quickly than usual; he then unequipped his sword and set to work to do some pet-levelling with the death mask lancer.

Unfortunately for MistressSabina, the beast flyers in the middle of the third floor were being fought by a knight, so she just fought the four in a side room and, when the end of her half hour attendance allowance was approaching, logged out rather than get a 3% addition to tomorrow's experience totals. She just had time to spin the Lacarette wheel, though, and got the star prize - fifteen golden Lacarette tokens, enough for five spins of the top type of course... a 360 aeria point value.

The evening session was another outing for MistressDomina, Kaerella and the polar bear cub, to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5. Things didn't get off to a very good start, a rogue called SHOSTFACE, in the BulgarianElite guild, was busy repeatedly luring big mobs onto the people in the corridor, with the usual loss of life. Annoyingly, one of the times I was just too slow to unequip the polar bear cub, so Kaerella had to go back to Dratan City and spend, at level 35, 1,013,200 gold to get him "unsealed". At least a poly does regenerate its own full health fairly quickly.

Things did settle down though, and MistressDomina was as usual pulling in the screaming zombies one by one for her lower-level accomplices to beat on, and doing her best to capture any zombies that passed in hot pursuit of someone who had been standing slightly too far forward. A bit later the level 102 mage Elfnastysfriend arrived - I suppose someone had got in touch with her about the way SHOSTFACE had been acting, and she did her best to calm things down, though Shost's command of English seemed a bit variable. She stayed around for a while, doing roughly what MD was doing, so that was fun - she didn't put on her gamesage glow, or "pull rank" in any way, and as usual was friendly and approachable. She is actually in the same guild as Ratel, Twisted.

Not long after Elfnastysfriend left, however, somebody else pulled the same trick of luring masses of screaming zombies and diseased grey mummies onto us. Kaerella's computer froze, so that I was unable to take off the poly, and I was so preoccupied with trying to keep the zombies away from her, and him, and generally dealing with as many as MD could, that I didn't notice that MD's own pet was in peril. earlier it had got down to 7 health - but this time, while I thought I'd unequipped it in time, when I came to put it back on found that I hadn't.

So for the last few minutes MistressDomina didn't have Kaerella there, after I'd finally managed to close the program, and she didn't have her drake either. Still, the fun continued, until most of us decided it was time to leave the Tomb, and head for the Quiz Room. As it had been a combat party this time, Kaerella had just added 3.00%, plus 8 skill points, while the polar bear cub was up by 31.96%. MistressDomina earned 10.10%, along with 9 skill points and 1879 pet points.

There was just time before the Quiz to get MistressDomina's drake "unsealed" too, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that a level 42 drake is cheaper to revive than a poly seven levels lower - the bill came to 506,268 gold.

Kaerella was joined as usual by my merchant mage MistressDomino in the Quiz Room; Ratel was there too. The questions were the usual ones, so it all went smoothly, though there were reports of a problem on one server, in the forum shoutbox afterwards. I think it turned out to be someone who had just been following the majority of other people in the room, and was surprised when, after question 21, everyone had respawned in town. Which is what usually happens, as after all the prizes are handed out, people deliberately choose the wrong answer then, to leave the Quiz Room.

The after-Quiz lag was as severe as usual, and as no gamesages were around, I had to reassure the usual people concerned about the "account is already in use" error message that is was just lag. "After the Sunday Quiz we always get heavy lag, which makes logging back in difficult for a few minutes. The trick is to never click to accept the "Timed Out" messages, just wait and things will eventually load. If you do click "timed out", and try again, the game thinks you are logged in already and you get the "already logged in" message, but it's just a glitch, don't worry", as my ready-made message puts it.

I got chatting in the shoutbox, and also chatting on the website's in-built messenger service with Luko, or rather Renez I think, from Norcaine's busier times. If I ever decide to try the game he and some others migrated to, "Aion", I should go to "NA V server (a)", apparently, to get in touch. And I'd enjoy it a lot, "apart from the ganking"...

I did get RedRackham back to the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail for another hour or so, anyway, and the drake reached level 41 at last... so it's probably time to see which character of mine on Auzura deserves a drake upgrade. As it had last night, the forum shoutbox got taken over by some youngsters from, apparently, Holland, spamming, pasting in the entire forum page, and being rude, so I kept clear...luckily there were gamesages around by then to do the necessary deleting.

Pet Levels - August 23rd

Once the various attendance allowances were claimed, which took until after coffee, there was time for Kaerella on Katar to head to Maargadum Jail's second floor again. Today she reached level 42, and was able to, once she was back in Randol, spend quite a few skill points, as that level opens up the second level of Master Weaponsmith and Master Armoursmith, for 345 sp each. The final levels come at level 52, and then all Kae's "special" skills will be done.

There was also the first level of Deadly Shot 2 to learn, for 200 skill points, to increase Kaerella's chance of a "deadly" hit on her target (which Kae ought to have got one level ago), so 890 skill points were spent in all. The session did however get her 37.72% and 107 skill points, plus 1004 pet points, so things are moving along steadily there.

After lunch it was time for another two-hour Tomb session on Cariae-4 for Barbarienne and Keerella, in their usual combat party. As before, I started well in advance of the "dungeon time" hour of 50% extra experience - 26 minutes ahead, in fact. In the first hour, Barbarienne got through no less than 53 experience boosters, 22 before the main hour began, and added 20.55%; the second hour, with slightly less "dungeon time" in it, added 17.76% more, with 20 booster-kills inside the main hour and 29 after it. Barbarienne's drake added 2122 pet points, Keerella's Scra-Chi pet SkrappY added 3.70%, and both Barb and Kee earned 5 skill points. Keerella, who only fought one sphinx fighter, otherwise just standing there for the combat party boost, got 0.84% experience.

For a change, the main room with the first four anubis spear men was empty when Barbarienne and Keerella arrived, so they settled in there. Apart from people hastily running through on their way to deeper parts, our only visitor was the mage Csaba93, who fought a few of the anubis sphinx men, and a big mob of sphinx fighters a time or two; she also spent a fair amount of time just standing in a safe place at the side, quite near us.

Another session like that ought to get Barbarienne into level 109, and allow her to use her shiny new level 109 bow, so that people don't comment on her still using a level 85 one. That may be all the levelling Barb does for a little while... though come to think of it there is a useful new level of a skill to get when she reaches 110... There was a little time left after that session, which soon got taken up with moving loot, from drops and from the loot wheel, across to my Cariae and Auzura-based merchant characters.

There was also just enough time to use the special golden LacaRette tokens which MistressSabina had gained; they were enough for five top-level spins, using three tokens each. One of the spins just gave a single golden token back, but the other four gave 25 item drop boosters, a platinum blessed iris, and a couple of the hour-long "super huge lucky scrolls".

Katar's Kaerella returned to Maargadum on Katar-5 after the food break, for about 45 minutes of the five to six "dungeon time"; 21.47% experience, 58 skill points, and 516 pet points were gained, from the second floor's various canines, and the beast scythes. RedRackham was back in action on floor three, over on Auzura-4, too...but when MistressSabina logged in and made a party with him, and headed for floor three, with a view to using a platinum super skill pill or two on the beast flyers between the two "dungeon times", unfortunately I found the spot already in use.

So, it was over to "plan B" - and another double trip to the Tomb of Theos, with MistressDomina and Kaerella, not to mention the polar bear cub, on Auzura-5. The place was busy as usual, and got busier as the evening progressed. Somehow we did occasionally get big groups of screaming zombies plus infected grey zombies lured in on us, but maybe our teamwork is improving. Kaerella did un-equip the poly occasionally, and even do a tiny bit of fighting and healing, but no pets were killed during the evening...or at least, neither of ours.

By the end, with an equal party, MistressDomina had moved past the halfway mark in level 92, adding 4.73%, and her drake gained 2642 pet points - enough to get it into level 43. I'd never actually remembered to use the previous stat point from when it reached level 42, so, afterwards, I made a point of going straight to the animal trainer in Dratan City and getting MD two more levels of the boost to her magical attack power. Kaerella added 6.97%, which shows how much shorter level 91 is than level 92, and they each gained 6 skill points from their evening's endeavours. The polar bear cub reached level 36, adding 61.48%.

And that was the end of the day's excitements. I definitely need to arrange for my merchant characters on Cariae and Auzura to do some selling before long, they now have plenty of stuff to get rid of - and as ever there are various things I need to buy, once I have enough gold...

MistressDomina Gets Twisted - August 24th

The usual characters got their half hours online in the morning, and I added SirKit to the line-up, in the hope that I'll be able to complete his armour set before too long. Chuck was able to buff a couple of junior players, and MistressDomina broke off from farming herb leaves, since she has been getting through them rather quickly lately, to give horse buffs to a low-level knight.

MistressDomina on Auzura went into merchant mode for an hour or so before and during the lunch break, after I'd checked on the current prices, but didn't sell very much, as that is hardly a peak time of day. The best sellers early on were the item drop boosters, but I didn't have many of those available. Luckily, later somebody bought a hundred skill point boosters, which made the total taken in, at around 180 million, rather more respectable.

Just after she logged in, Keerella had a newly arrived titan called Letmium asking for help, so Kee led him to Healer Yabo for quests and Bianca for storage, and gave him some minor potions, a couple of rings, and some gold. I suppose I ought to have suggested he went to Cariae-5 rather than Cariae-4, I must mention the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff if I run into him again...

And then it was time for Barbarienne and Keerella to make another trip out to the Tomb of Theos on Cariae-4. The first anubis spear man room was in use, so I went on a few yards into the corridor, and settled in at the first corner. It was 18 minutes before the two to three o'clock "dungeon time" when Barbarienne started her pots; 14 anubis spear men were killed before the 50% boost started, and in all 57 experience boosters were used in the first hour; gaining 23.51% took Barbarienne safely into level 109.

Reaching level 109 meant that Barbarienne could equip her new bow, and the change in attack between a level 85 one and a level 109 one was pretty marked - instead of a critical hit of around 6930 damage, now it went up to about 8700, with her physical offence stat moving from 2085 to 2553. Luckily nobody was fighting just around the next corner of the corridor, as the two closest anubis spear men were no longer quite enough, sometimes Barb would kill one before the other had respawned and have to move forward and attack the next spear man along.

The second hour saw another 18 spear men killed before "dungeon time" ended after 18 minutes, and a further 46 in the rest of the time, so that another 21.59% was added. In all, then, across the two hours Barbarienne gained 45.10% while using 121 experience boosters. Her drake gained 2091 pet points. Keerella just got 0.96% from being in the combat party, but 4.19% was enough to get her cartoon cat-like Scra-Chi pet, SkrappY, into its 54th level. And Barb and Kee each added 6 skill points.

Barbarienne levelling up means that, until Keerella too levels up, they won't be able to form a combat party, so it may be a little while before Barb can try for level 110. I don't particularly want to do a "power hour" with Kee, though it would be easy enough for her to level up on those anubis spear men...she wants skill points as well as experience, so will do best to take it at a natural pace.

RedRackham traded the level 41 drake across to MistressBlaze in exchange for her level 39 one, so that she now has 25 levels of physical defence (for 200 extra) and 15 levels of magical attack (15 extra); he then set off for the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail, and did some pet-levelling over the early evening food break.

He would have continued there longer, but when MistressSabina, in a solo party with him, arrived at the beast flyers on floor three, just as the "dungeon time" was ending, the place was in use again - by the same knight as last time I think, Draconer. As he wasn't using any pots, I don't really see why he is in Auzura-4 away from the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, but hopefully he will level up and move on to another spot before too long.

So, it was "plan B" again, with MistressDomina, Kaerella and the polar bear cub going to the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5 to join some familiar faces there in the never-ending battle against the screaming zombies. There weren't any annoyed or just plain naughty people luring in huge mobs tonight, so things went pretty well, though as usual there were quite a few times when I had to use Terra Spear to attract the attention of a screamie which was intent on killing someone of a rather low level.

It was perhaps just as well that MistressSabina hadn't been able to battle the beast flyers, as the "Happy Hour" started just then, and was announced as double experience and skill experience. That wouldn't have been very convenient for Sabina, but for MD and Kae it was fine. For a part of the session the level 85 sorcerer LittleDrugzz joined our party, so we made it a combat one, but later on he moved further in, so we were able to go back to the equal type.

We had to leave slightly earlier than usual, but MistressDomina had, thanks to the Happy Hour and the "dungeon time", added 10.87%, while Kaerella was up by 11.40%. They had each gained 12 skill points; MD's drake had earned 2484 pet points, and Kae's poly was up by 44.04%.

Ratel had been in touch, and we both decided that it was time for MistressDomina to join him in the Twisted guild (with a future possibility of Rage joining too) - so once the "dungeon time" ended, at nine, MD and Kae left the Tomb on Auzura-5, and moved across to Auzura-4, where one of the Twisted guild advisers would pick her up in a party, recall her to him, and allow her to apply to join. It got slightly complicated by Ratel thinking that Kaerella was a guild adviser in Norcaine, and could thus kick MD from the guild, when in fact it was MD who held that post - so he had to switch across to Elvastar, as guild master for Norcaine, and both kick MD and promote Kae.

MistressDomina registered for a party, as instructed, and was picked up by Dropkick, a Twisted guild adviser. Where would the party recall take me - the furthest reaches of the Tomb perhaps, or an exotic part of Strayana...or maybe dangerously high in Lust Trum tower in Egeha? Actually, Dropkick was just standing in the middle of Dratan City. As soon as Elvastar had kicked her from Norcaine, MD applied to join Twisted, and was accepted. Maybe today's title would be more accurate as "Twisted Gets MistressDomina", but where's the fun in that? It is a level 11 guild, so has room for plenty of members, and I think about a dozen must have been online - the text in the message box was all purple, suddenly, and moving pretty fast. It will be strange to be in an active guild again; I didn't contribute much in the way of conversation, beyond a response that spanking was extra, and only said goodnight to Ratel and Dropkick in the party.

I did attempt to set MistressDomino, my Auzura merchant, up to sell some more items, but when I went to click to actually go into merchant mode, after choosing all the items and the prices, nothing happened. I moved towards the arena, in case it was some local area effect, but that part of town was strangely deserted...and just as I was coming to realise what had happened, the "disconnected" window popped up. Ah well, a slightly downbeat way to end a fairly important day, but if you're going to get a disconnection, then just standing around in town is the best place for it.

Technical Problems - August 25th

The new patch this morning was rather large, though it didn't seem to accomplish much. When starting the game after getting the "update completed" all-clear, though, a little window would come up, saying "Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game." All one could do was press the "OK" - and after three or four goes, the newer computer did manage to get going. However, the older computer continued to give this message, even after the computer itself had been restarted. I was advised to try "flushing the DNS", which is a "command prompt" line, and easy enough to do, but that didn't help. Neither did further restarts, or switching off the modem for a while - which was a shame, as that meant that MistressDomino, who I'd put in merchant mode on Auzura-5, had to come offline.

I was doing "the high-tech version of thumping the computer case violently", as I termed it in the shoutbox, "ie a System Restore", when gamesage Irene_tas said that it looked as if I would have to do a complete new installation of the game, probably - though someone else said that they had already tried that three times. But as the System Restore was already going, I continued with it...and once my settings had been backdated to yesterday, I tried to start Last Chaos again. As before, the usual launcher came up, and then, when "start" was clicked, vanished. The suspense was terrible, but finally instead of the irritating little error window, the full-size LC window started to load. The log-in background, usually a view of Mondshine apparently, was a bit strange, but MistressDomino was able to log back in, and continue her sales campaign.

MistressDomino had sold her moonstone boxes before her break, as well as her strong medicines, and now she sold her moonstones quickly, so it looks as if I need to revise my prices for that sort of thing. Meanwhile, RedRackham had headed for the fifth floor of Maargadum Jail, and was busy pet-levelling his drake. MistressDomino sold three Runes of Protection 2, and then a hundred skill point boosters.

With all that to keep me busy, there had been no time for my characters to put in their "attendance allowance" half hours - so it was kind of handy that the new Patch Notes reveal that the system had been removed. "We have removed the system for now but that does not mean it will be gone forever. Let us know if you really miss it! " Apart from that, some weapon enhancement names have been changed, to make them a bit more relevant, and new characters get some more early quests, and "Last Chaos Newbie" above their heads for the first seven days.

My plan for the afternoon was to get MistressDomina and Kaerella down to the anubis spear men in the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5 for the "dungeon time" hour of two to three, but alas it wasn't to be. Kaerella crashed, with the usual "send error report?" pop-up, when we were a few yards into the screaming zombies. She logged back in - and crashed again. In all she crashed five times, so, given that there have been other crashes down there in recent weeks, it was time to reinstall the game on the older computer. That took most of the afternoon, so MistressDomina was fighting, just at the start against the screaming zombies, at a bit less than full speed.

The game was downloaded, uninstalled, and installed again, and then patching it to get it back up to date took a further 26 minutes. After which - yes, you've probably guessed it, we were back to the "Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game." message. Numerous attempts to get the game's launcher to actually launch the game failed, and a restart didn't help either, so the next stage was another System Restore to yesterday's checkpoint...which again took ages. And it came with the caveat that various files had had to be renamed - which entirely ruined the Last Chaos files, with probably hundreds of the properly named files just about empty, and the correct stuff, presumably, in files with a "(2)" on the end

MistressDomina's session added exactly 4.00% experience, along with 7 skill points and 1568 pet points, so that was something, but it was annoying to be limited to the single computer.

So, a further uninstallation and reinstalling was then called for, which again took quite a while, as did the patching...but all it got me was the same moronic "Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game."

The guild chat channel for Twisted seemed pretty busy, but it was mainly chat between people I'd never met and didn't know, using either real names or nicknames rather than the character names, so it tended to go over my head. I did enquire what sort of time there might be any monster combo type stuff done, but didn't really get anywhere with that approach. Oh well, it's difficult as a newbie to get into the swing of things, but I'll continue to try - maybe some members or other in the guild will try too.

For want of anything better to do, MistressDomina went back to the Tomb of Theos for the usual shorter Wednesday evening session, and just fought the screaming zombies, helping out whenever anyone got chased down the corridor. Ratel did come online, and tried to cheer me up a bit, but he couldn't really work me into the guild chat, and there wasn't enough time left for it to be worth him coming and joining MD.

Still, MistressDomino did manage to add another 3.40%, 7 skill points, and 2972 pet points before the usual early Wednesday evening log-out. There was double pet experience running, so it was a pity that RedRackham wasn't able to take advantage of that later.

All in all, a bit of a frustrating day. Maybe the overnight downtime will be enough to get the older computer's fresh install running...if not, well, I'm running a little short of ideas.

Please Stand By - August 26th

[GM]AwesomeSauce had requested in the Last Chaos forum shoutbox that people who were experiencing the "Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game" problem should sent in a ticket, so I did that last thing last night, along with a screenshot - just an area of my older computer's desktop, with twelve of the little pop-up windows cascading neatly down it. I had a reply waiting this morning, but only a kind of preliminary one - as usual in such cases it asks for a screenshot, as a link not an attachment, so without comment I included the link to PhotoBucket again, where "LCerror.jpg" is hosted. They wanted me to check that lastchaos.exe wasn't running, so I did that... since the computer had been turned off overnight, that would have been a neat trick if it was still rumbling away in there somewhere.

I needed to go out shopping this morning, and my main purchase was a new monitor for the older computer, one with a proper high definition screen resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. Unfortunately the older computer, running XP, seems to have no provision for these new-fangled wide screens, and the nearest resolution it offers is 1280 by 1024. This looks better than the default 1024 by 768, but any pictures displayed are going to show some rather tubby people.

Meanwhile, MistressDomino did a little more selling, at least. She didn't sell out of anything, but she sold a few more skill point boosters, and twenty heaven stones, so her gold total is moving on steadily.

For the main part of the afternoon, a newly-created healer over on the Katar server, LadyScarlet, investigated the new quests available, with "LastChaos Newbie" in green above her head. The tutorial quest at the start had been changed, with a "boss" to fight in its main room - a Corrupt Dragon, level five. Luckily he didn't seem inclined to actually attack LadyScarlet, who was using her bow from out in the corridor - but he didn't drop any loot, which seems a bit of a shame.

Elizabeth gave her a present of five small healing potions, which was more useful than the potions of haste that most of the early quests have always given. There are a succession of "quest scrolls" that need to be clicked to be activated, but they just take you to an NPC in town for a small reward, such as three scrolls of recall. But generally it was just a matter of killing foxes and deer for Healer Yabo, and then wolves, and carrying on much as usual. I was lucky enough to pick up a level 33 shield somebody had dropped in town, which meant I had enough cash to eventually buy a better bow; I could probably get her better armour, as well.

I was intending to split the evening session into two parts, but when the "happy hour" was announced at just after 7:00pm UK time, with double experience and skill exp, it seemed to fit best with what I was doing then - which was fighting the screaming zombies in the Tomb of Theos. Not with my Auzura level 92 mage MistressDomina, though; instead I was working on my Cariae level 98 mage Keerella, who needs to reach level 99 if she is going to be able to continue to be in a combat party with Barbarienne...assuming that I will be able to use both computers for LC again before too long.

Keerella was in the Cariae-4 Tomb, which, since the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff for players on level sixty or below isn't available on Cariae-4, is nice and quiet. I had the first part of the Tomb to myself for most of the evening, except for the occasional passer-by, though for the last half hour or so the witch STRAWBERRY was there too. Judging by her 60/62 armour set, the same one that MistressBlaze, on level 57, wears, she was being rather daring. She used masses of pots - a crit, platinum adrenaline, power potion, health stealer, and more, plus quite a few large health potions, but she was managing to kill the zombies. I was able to take a second zombie off her a couple of times, and she did need to do a fair amount of running about.

Anyway, I continued a little past my usual finish time, to get Kee's experience gain up to 5.00%. She earned 43 skill points, which must be her biggest gain in a single session for quite a while, and her drake, Greedo, added 3890 pet points. Keerella's armour is better than MistressDomina's, but her weapon isn't as good, at "just" +15, so the Terra Spear skill tends to do around 24k damage rather than 30k or so.

The possibility of a near-future weekend "master stone tiered spender event" seems to have diminished, as the "new season" of the new Loot Forge isn't just a different selection of gems at various levels, it is upgrading-themed. The more times you risk your stake (which is aeria points - 1 ore is 49 ap, dropping to 35 if you buy, gulp, a hundred at a time), the more likely you are to get something good, though if you fail at any stage you lose your previous prize. Possible prizes include master stones +17, master stones +19, +21, +23, and even +25. These don't take an item all the way from no + at all to the number they give, they will just take your item up one, with that number as the maximum. The prize you get would be a master stone ticket, which can be traded - and then its owner can send in a ticket to have the upgrading applied, as before, by a GM.

I can't say I like the idea, though apparently the price of the +17 ticket is around 600 million on Cariae now, so buying such a thing for in-game gold is a possible option, if one has an item that would be worth that much more if it had the master stone applied to it. It looks as if there are going to be quite a few more weapons around now that are above +15...

Back on Track...? - August 27th

I kept working on the "Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game." problem this morning, in my usual low-tech way. First I did a System Restore to a point I'd set late last night, but that didn't do anything, and then I moved over the installation files from one of the download sites I'd downloaded onto the newer computer - and I also moved over the newer computer's complete "LastChaosUSA" file folder, using a USB flash drive.

I uninstalled the game, and then got rid of the "LastChaosUSA" folder, as that was still actually there, with, it seemed, most of its contents. Then I installed the game again from the different client - but that still gave the usual "Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game." message, once the game had updated itself. I had difficulty renaming its newly-created "LastChaosUSA", as it was apparently "still in use", but once I closed Firefox, the renaming was done, to "LastChaosUSA fri install" - and I moved in the "LastChaosUSA" folder I'd copied across from the newer machine. Then I launched the launcher - and "Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game." didn't immediately appear. After a rather long three or four seconds, the game actually started to load.

After all that, all I did was send RedRackham down into Maargadum jail on Auzura-4 again. The window for the game is now 1151 by 864 for some reason, and, on the new LG monitor, looks nice and bright, if rather too wide, stretched by the different screen shape. Still, slightly sturdier monsters, and more spacious rooms, seem to work okay. The next trick would be to head for the Tomb of Theos later, and not get the "send error report?" crash message.

Kaerella logged on, on the newer machine, on Katar-5, and headed for the second floor of Maargadum Jail, to fight the two-headed, dire spike, and spike canines - but just before the end of her session, a level 50 rogue called Marckiller30 asked where to find the Death Knight of Iris.

I gave him the directions, but he said he had been there, and there was no Death Knight. It sounded as if somebody else had killed it recently and it hadn't had time to respawn, but on the chance that it'd be back, Marckiller30 persuaded me to party with him and go down there...which I reluctantly agreed to, after insisting we went out and got horse buffs first.

A level 45 specialist sorcerer called mttx joined the party too, and came down with us. I carefully applied mana shield, and we entered the torture room - but the Death Knight still wasn't back. We stayed and killed the death mask soldiers and lancers for a while, in case it respawned, but then I had to log out for lunch. Marckiller was considering trying over on Katar-4 instead, I hope he got on okay.

Kaerella had added 21.10% in all, plus 63 skill points and 471 pet points. I'd not equipped her drake in the torture room, but we probably got reasonable experience there. It would have been a bit of a surprise if the Death Knight had respawned on us there, we were probably rather lucky not to encounter him.

After lunch, I made another attempt to do what I'd tried to do on Wednesday, which was to take MistressDomina, Kaerella, and the polar bear cub down to the anubis spear men in the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5, for a "power hour" there coinciding with the two o'clock to three o'clock (UK) "dungeon time" hour with its 50% experience boost. Last time, I had to give up after Kaerella crashed out five times in a row, leading to the reinstallation of the game sending me back into "Update completed. Update is completed. Please, restart game." land. This time, much to my relief, Kaerella didn't have any problems.

My duo reached the first bend in the corridor after the spear man room and, after dealing with a sphinx fighter or two that had followed, Kaerella, in the combat party, just stood in the corner, with the poly equipped. After a while the anubis spear men did seem to start to hit MistressDomina a bit harder than I'd expected; I was a bit wary of Kaerella healing her during a fight, in case that stopped the experience booster from triggering, but there wasn't a problem, though once it did bring a sphinx fighter in on Kae, who had to quickly un-equip the poly, fight it, and then re-equip him.

There was some chat on the Twisted guild channel, in which I did somehow feel a bit more welcome; our guild master emeritus, Spazz, was online. A joke was told about a man staggering out of an antiques shop, carrying a grandfather clock he'd just bought, only for a drunk to collide with him, so that the grandfather clock was dropped, shattered into a thousand pieces. The man was not very happy, but the drunk blearily asked why he didn't just use a watch like everyone else. "Some people have too much time on their hands" was my comment...

MistressDomino was hitting perhaps 10% less hard than usual, but by the end of the hour 35 anubis spear men had been killed, for the use of 35 experience boosters, and MD was safely into level 93, adding 55.40%. After that MD and Kae ran back to the start of the Tomb, and just fought the screaming zombies, in an equal party, with Kaerella mainly standing well back with the polar bear cub equipped. The cleric Lilyanne joined the party for a little while, at her request, but as I thought, soon found that she could get more experience "ks-ing" from outside the party.

In all that session, MistressDomina added 56.29%, and Kaerella added 3.43%, while they each gained 3 skill points. MD's drake got 2096 pet points, and the polar bear cub went up by 18.85%.

There was some selling to be done over the food break and beyond, so MistressDomino went into merchant mode on Auzura-5, and did pretty well, after a slow start, selling most of her skill point boosters, some heaven stones, a couple of MP stealers, an old Halloween pumpkin helm for a rogue, and even some potions of pet healing. Around 300 million brought in made her total cash stash quite useful once more. And she continued for the rest of the evening, selling her runes of protection 2, the rest of her skill point boosters, and other oddments.

MistressBlaze had a rather brief session, initially out with the elite sphinx speer man and his friends, and then riding back to the arcane golems, in case, closer to her level, they'd be more generous with the loot. She only gained 4.14% though, plus 12 skill points, because soon it was time to log her out, and switch over to my level 92 rogue Rage. I'd earlier checked that there was to be no "official" Twisted guild presence at the high-level Mad Monster Spawn, and indeed I didn't see anybody from that guild there.

The Auzura "MMS" started punctually, at seven o'clock, UK time, with announcements leading up to it in the traditional way; [GM]Darasuum arrived early, and chatted a little, looking suitably impressive in his night shadow costume, plus a GM's identifying green glow. There were three waves of monsters, and Rage did have to be a bit careful, particularly when there were flutons involved - a couple of times she snared one, and that seemed to make Rage its main target when it got free, so some running like heck was needed. Those invisible walls, when one tries to run along a slope, could have been fatal, but luckily Rage survived. After just under half an hour, Darasuum spawned the usual hands of loot for us to grab, and then spawned some flutons and patriarch botises to keep us busy, declaring the event officially over - and, as we were not a particularly high-powered bunch, those kept us busy for the next 25 minutes.

That meant Barbarienne, my level 109 archer, only just teleported to the "MMS" location on Cariae-5 for the scheduled eight o'clock start with a couple of minutes to spare, to find...well, to find nobody, actually. I was just heading back towards town when the next person arrived... I remarked in the shoutbox that it was strange, I'd thought the Cariae MMS was due to start. A couple of other people did arrive, and then there was a "MMS in 5 minutes" GM announcement. I commented that the GM had woken up, and [GM]Yatou apologetically said that they had been rather busy. He or she never actually appeared, staying "invisible".

There were less people at this MMS, compared with Auzura, but we luckily had some people who were level 140 or so, which meant that we could kill flutons and so on rather more quickly. Yatou "improvised" a fairly big group of flutons, and patriarch botises, and large level 140 floating skull-like heads, eager to munch any of us, called "croythes", which when killed spawned a couple of maggot-like creatures of a similar level. And with that he vanished, ignoring any reminders that it was customary to spawn some loot, as we had disposed of the regular waves within the 30 minutes allowed. Well, we had never seen him, but there was no more in the way of conversation.

I did feel safer as Barbarienne than as Rage - well, 17 levels do make a difference, and I could take on wight slashers, and some other monsters, without any great risk - though, as with Rage, I did get stunned a time or two by the archer spirits, and was on the receiving end of a fluton's flamethrower skill, which leaves one dazed and bleeding. I'd been recruited into a party by a level 5 character I never actually saw on my compass map - they also brought in a level 85 knight called Hommer2, so I was able to provide horse buffs while he was melee fighting.

The monsters were all killed within 30 minutes, leaving us at a loose end, though some people fooled around with the low-level monsters that now populate the area, bringing in whole "trains" of treants. xSmexySorcereR decided to drop some loot himself - I generally didn't chase around after it, but he did drop an item drop booster next to me, which I managed to grab. I'm glad I did say "ty", as later looking at my inventory I saw it was actually ten of them...

There wasn't really time to do anything much after that...though I might bring MistressDomino out of merchant mode just before logging-out time, for a quick look to see if there are any items she could spend her now rather more substantial chunk of money on. Or that might happen tomorrow morning.

A New Problem - August 28th

I didn't see any items to buy with my last-thing shopping last night, but while MistressDomina on Cariae-5 was browsing the players in merchant mode this morning, she did at least find an Eyes of Spirit accessory for 45 million, being sold by the temple knight TIKALxMT; there is sure to be one of my Cariae characters who could use it. It doesn't seem so long ago that they were five times that price...

The next thing to do, I decided, was log Keerella in, and move a few items across to MistressDomina, as Kee's inventory is rather full. So, Kee logged in on the newer computer, and I started up Last Chaos on the older computer - at which point disaster struck. Maybe the higher resolution for the game that the new monitor had enabled had over-strained the graphics card, but the screen was suddenly made up of rather random rectangles of stuff, and doing a restart just brought further strange decorations overlaying the usual desktop. Well, it is an old computer, so is it worth replacing the video card?

So, that scuppered my plan for MistressDomina on Auzura to have another "power hour" before lunch. After fiddling around a little, I just ended up with Cariae's MD in merchant mode for a while, though there were so many people selling things, and so few people buying things, that business was rather quiet. We did at least sell a hundred skill point boosters, and a few other oddments - ten moonstone boxes, five heaven stones, that sort of thing.

The attempt for MistressDomina on Auzura to do a "power hour" from two to three o'clock didn't work out, either. I mentioned my intention on the Twisted guild chat tab, but there didn't seem anyone who could give me a solo party - Dropkick, the level 103 temple knight, would possibly be available in ten minutes or so when his pots ended. So I headed down into the Tomb of Theos on Auzura-5, and had just reached that corridor corner, which was already in use though the next spot seemed free, when the level 101 assassin-rogue Chilla asked for a combat party as she passed. I registered, she picked me up - and recalled me a few yards further along, to the wider corridor with pillars at its sides, with four spear men, plus sphinx fighters and towards its far end a single anubis attacker.

We seemed to be slightly at cross purposes, however. Chilla was actually in Twisted, I realised... a pity, if we'd worked things out in advance she could have saved me the entrance fee by using her party recall to bring me straight into the Tomb. "Sit here an hour, and thanks", she said. "Ok? You must sit here." To which I replied, "I'll take the two in this direction." But she said "What? I need four."

So, instead of a "power hour" and a gain of around 50%, I just fought the sphinx fighters, and the sole anubis attacker, using no expensive pots or boosters - just the occasional health potion. And as far as I could see, Chilla didn't actually need all four, while she did move between the two pairs, she didn't have to do that very often. Dropkick joined us once his own pots had ended, and he and a night shadow, also in Twisted, who had a polar bear cub equipped, just sat down next to one of the torches at the side. I was careful to pick up the loot, so that everyone got a little gold for coming, and did remind Chilla once when she was out of compass-map range of the two afk party members... and ended up, when the hour was over, with 3.04% experience gained.

I continued a little while after that, since the others were still there, getting up to 3.39%, but when Dropkick headed back to Randol, MistressDomina ran back to the start of the Tomb, and fought a few screaming zombies, helping out whenever some junior fighter got chased down the corridor. The session ended with MD up a total of 4.19%, which may not seem much, but it didn't cost anything. She got 7 skill points, and 1647 pet points for her drake.

After the early evening food break, MistressSabina went to Maargadum Jail to visit the beast flyers, but Auzura-4's room was occupied by the knight JING, and Auzura-5's by the specialist sorcerer BiliBala, so I was out of luck there. Instead, MistressBlaze logged in, and teleported out to the sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men in south-west Dratan. The level 51 assassin-type rogue Killerhoernch3n arrived at almost exactly the same moment, and we teamed up in a combat party, making a pretty good team against the elite sphinx speer man and his cohorts.

She didn't stay very long, though, saying she needed to do some farming - she did remain in the party for a while however, so that I was able to switch it over to the equal type, and register it as a "party seeking members", with the usual "solo" title. We gradually got up to the full eight, including two or three people visible on the Dratan map - and one of the last of the original eight to join was spazz, from Twisted, so I said hi and identified myself. How he came not to have a guild party I don't know...

It was a long session for MistressBlaze, helped along by the evening's "Turbo" event adding an extra 50% experience and skill exp, though, added on to the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, which MB is still low enough to get, at level 57, it actually just works out at just 25% more. The buff had worn off by the time I was back in Dratan City, but by then MistressBlaze had gone up by 38.00%, 49 skill points, and 1180 pet points.

I kept an eye on the forum shoutbox, particularly when the gamesage Zhegao was only looking in occasionally, trying to concentrate most of his attention on his college work, and generally playing back-up and giving people the links they were asking for. [GM]Yatou put in an appearance, and I commented "By the way, it's usual to end a MMS with a generous spawning of loot", adding the "rolleyes" type smiley face. "Yeeeeah, I realized it when I went to bed last night that I forgot to change the coordinates on the MMS gifting tool", he replied. "So they did spawn >> just in another location >< so sorry about that." So, our loss was the red sasquatches' gain, apparently. I hope someone was farming there, and was able to get rather rich very suddenly! Yatou didn't stay long, as he had, he said, 200-plus RTs to deal with.

Condition is Everything - August 29th

I was determined to have MistressDomina manage a "power hour" today, not least because there is one of the low-chance freebie "raffles" going on this weekend and using boosters is the way to get an entry or ten. So, MistressDomina logged on at about twenty to eleven, aiming for the eleven to twelve o'clock "dungeon time". I managed to get into a rather full Twisted guild solo party on Auzura-4, and headed for the spear man room in the Tomb of Theos. My theory was that this early in the Sunday, the place ought to be relatively quiet, and sure enough, there was just a level 97 knight, Carvante, there, already fighting the nearest pair of anubis spear men. I checked that he was okay about me setting up operations opposite him with the other two, and he was - and proposed a combat party, so I said farewell to MD's guildies, and he recruited me.

When the "dungeon time" began, I started my berserker, platinum adrenaline, and large crit potions, popped an experience booster - and as the spear man I was fighting was almost dead, quickly started the platinum blessed iris too. Before long a level 87 mage called elfera arrived, and she joined the combat party as well. She did attempt to assist me with my kill, but I had to tell her not to as I was using boosters. Since she wasn't confident about making solo kills, she then went into the corner, to get a bit of experience from the combat party and give us the boost.

When the hour ended, MistressDomina had gone up by 53.86% in level 93, after using 37 experience boosters. The dungeon's Condition seemed roughly the same as yesterday, not perfect, but not too hard either. Carvante stayed fighting, after his "power hour" was up, in the hopes of reaching his next level, but without boosters he didn't make a huge amount of progress. Still, it made sense for MD to stick around, near elfera in the corner.

I had a rather quick return after lunch, and did a bit more fighting; some other people were doing a bit of power-levelling, and one of them joined our party - they even brought in somebody else to provide the party recall for their power-levelling, with the promise of a pbi for their time.

Carvante had a disconnection, I think he said his laptop froze, and then got recalled back in, though there was some disagreement about who was entitled to fight that limited supply of anubis spear men - and the power-levelling group and Carvarle left to settle their differences on Auzura-6, a subserver where PvP is enabled. The group stayed there, though Carvante soon returned, and resumed his duties in the party, though now he was mainly on the sphinx fighters.

After a while I decided that, since I was there, I might as well not just wait for the two to three o'clock "dungeon time" hour, but do as Barbarienne had sometimes done, and "frame" it in two one-hour power hours. So, I started well before the 50% boost hour - I used 19 experience boosters before it began, and another 13 while it was running, for, including the small amount of experience made unboosted beforehand, 32.70%. The second hour used 16 experience boosters in the "dungeon time" hour, and another 13 after it, for another 29.21%.

Compared with the morning hour, that represented a bit of a slowdown - 37, then 32, then 29 anubis spear men killed per hour. I might have lost a single spear man per hour after lunch from having to protect elfera, who had moved to a rather vulnerable position before going permanently away-from-keyboard...generally it was only the anubis spear men who spawned near her, but very occasionally a sphinx fighter would come in and attack her - we all tried to stop her from being killed.

Another rogue, an assassin called Yournext, who was just in range for the combat party, had joined us, and Carvante left...and eventually, much to my relief and with only about 15% health, elfera vanished too. Yournext had a red name, though she admitted she'd got it by killing another character of hers; when she finished her pots, she traded me a couple each of the HP and MP stealer pots and a dozen of the more potent Remedy items, which I think, looking back, may be quite valuable - I just use the ordinary Remedy type, costing 5k each. when a spear man stuns me. I gave her ten million for them, which is a bit low, but I don't think she was expecting anything. I had ten minutes or so of my pots left when she said she was heading for Randol, so I asked her to stay in the party so that I had the solo party boost...but she actually stayed in the room for me, so that I had the combat party advantage, which was kind.

Anyway, the reason for the slowdown in MistressDomina's kill rate was that the Condition of the Tomb of Theos had deteriorated. The spear men had got tougher, and I noticed that the damage that MD's terra spear attack did, already well down from its peak, had fallen by at least another thousand. And MD was starting to take some serious damage, her 10% suction of life accessory was no longer enough, generally, to keep her healthy...I was using a lot of medium health potions, and some larger ones too. So, I was quite glad when that second set of pots was finished.

In all, MistressDomina had added 115.77% from her three hours with pots, and the bit of in-between-time. 4 skill points had been gained, and her drake was ahead by 3762 pet points. She had reached level 94 during that second hour, so she is firmly back ahead of Chuck now.

Back in town, there was a new passive skill to learn - the seventh level of Staff Mastery, for 400 skill points, which added 11 to her magical attack. That may only be around 0.45%, but it all helps. MistressDomina then rode across towards the arena, and watched some of her guildies. You can't actually fight people in your own guild, so one member had been kicked specially, and was presumably allowed back in later. And then, after passing over a couple of hit rate rings to a rogue I'd met, in his or her sorcerer guise, in the Tomb before, it was time for my break.

The evening is of course shortened by the Sunday Quiz, at 8:30pm UK time, for which one needs to set out with a few minutes to spare. Unfortunately I was running a little late, but I decided to take MistressSabina to see if the beast flyers on floor three of Maargadum Jail on Auzura-4 were free - and for a miracle, they were. One slight problem was that I didn't manage to find a solo party until about halfway through Sabina's pssp-using hour, which must have cut back the skill points gained, but when the pssp ran out, she had gained 132 skill points, while adding 4.65%. I did stay there a bit longer, since I doubt if I have enough pssps to do the whole level, and by the end, Sabina had gained a total of 154 skill points, 5.75%, and 1294 pet points.

MistressSabina had actually got the "attendance bonus" timer running when she logged in, as she had only got about halfway through the 30 minutes countdown on her most recent appearance, before the last maintenance removed that. When the timer reached zero, though, there was no announcement - so that's the end of that. She had picked up a good selection of gems, tool aids, heaven stones, and tokens from the beast flyers, so, once she was back in Randol, Sabina was able to make her five spins of the LacaRette wheel, using "course B" as usual, and for a change none of the five prizes was a single potion of haste - instead, she got two packs of five heaven stones in succession, which rather makes up for MistressDomino not being able to go to the Quiz tonight. She also had time to increase her supply of quality stones, buying sixteen mage-type hammers from Geres and going out to the mine.

And then it was time to go to the Quiz Room on Auzura-2, so Kaerella logged in to go there solo. The good news was that the room is now normal, we can once again just click on the floor to move to that spot, instead of having to use the WSAD keys. The quiz was a bit slow to start, after its usual "start" cue had appeared, but after that we rolled merrily along. Curiously, most of the room forgot that teleporter Nadil is associated with Lust Trum, and our numbers were a bit sparse after that question, but Ratel and his family were among the survivors.

Ratel, however, did tell me that he is moving house, just to a different part of the same town in South Africa, tomorrow, and his internet service provider has told him that it will take around three weeks to get his internet connection working at the new address. So, Twisted, and I, will be without him for almost all of the coming month...He wasn't happy about that, but I reminded him he could spend the time reading his vampire books - he has become a bit of a "True Blood" fan apparently. I also advised him to make sure the kettle and teapot weren't packed away too deeply in the moving boxes...

Once Kaerella had got her Quiz loots, she logged out, which at certain times in the past has been a wise move, as any disconnections right after the quiz did tend to remove recently-acquired stuff, such as heaven stones, from everyone's inventories. I kept an eye on the shoutbox, and put MistressDomina on Cariae-5 into merchant mode for a while, where she quickly sold her stocks of chaos balls, moonstone boxes, and mana stealers, which boosted her gold reserves nicely...though without Ratel to rely on, I'm a bit stuck for moving stuff between characters until I manage to get a second computer back in-game.

Greedo Levels Up - August 30th

Cariae's MistressDomina carried on in merchant mode after I'd finished yesterday, and by morning had done some useful selling - almost doubling her gold reserves, in fact, so that it soon ought to be possible to look into getting SirKit his full 85/87 armour set.

Auzura's MistressDomina logged in after coffee today, mainly to check with the members of Twisted online if they knew if the Tomb of Theos had been reset to a lower difficulty level, but nobody seemed to have an answer to the question - and looking at the guild list, nobody online was actually in the Tomb. That seemed a bad sign, so I bade them farewell for a while - and decided to find some other use for the upcoming "dungeon time" hour.

Kaerella logged in over on Katar-5, and after quickly making some inventory space by moving some items out of storage into a second character on that account, and then putting in some accessories etc, reached Maargadum Jail just in time for the start of the hour...with her horse buffs still active, she was at the back of the ground floor killing the canine mob that had followed her, when the "dungeon time" announcement came up.

Most of the time was, as usual for Kae there, spent on the second floor, in its room of spike canines, dire spike canines, and double-headed canines. Her drake took a bit of damage, but the experience gain was good; I didn't get access to a solo party for a while, and had to leave a few minutes before the end of the hour at noon, but Kaerella managed to add 19.34%, 57 skill points, and 455 pet points. She is still 700 or so sp below her highest point, after spending so many points when she reached 42, but her total is recovering.

For the afternoon, Barbarienne got into a solo party on Cariae-5, and headed into the Tomb of Theos. Luckily the Cariae one seemed nice and easy, Condition-wise, but Barb did miss having Keerella with her, so it probably wasn't that good an idea to give her the session.

At level 109, Barbarienne is three levels above the anubis spear men - and that means that the experience they give has been reduced, when Kee isn't there in a combat party to lower the group's average level. I did half an hour before the "dungeon time" hour, and the same length of time afterwards, so I used two platinum blessed irises - but I didn't use any potions, except a single platinum adrenaline to speed up Barb's attack during the central hour. Without the 50% boost the experience per kill was 255,402,984, plus 770 skill exp, going up to 383,104,476. In the first half hour Barbarienne added 4.00% from 20 boosters; that was followed by 7.49% from 25 boosters, 6.58% from 22, and 3.04% from 15...the platinum adrenaline certainly increased the kill rate. During that last half hour I did get a phone call, about a new computer I've just ordered, but I was back in time to pick up the shield that had been dropped, one of three items I could sell to Geres later.

Barbarienne went up in all by 21.12%, which wasn't too bad for two hours; the 7 skill points are welcome, as are the 2080 pet points.

The titan Dr.Jirri. a shoutbox regular I'd last seen at the Auzura Mad Monster Spawn last week, turned up in the shoutbox, slightly annoyed that he'd got, having reached the fifth level of the loot forge, only a rune of protection 2. Apparently out of fifty ores he had got eleven assorted master stone tickets, from +17 to +23. Eventually he apologised for some typos, blaming his burned fingers - I assumed it had been a BBQ accident or something, but he eventually revealed that his apartment had caught fire last night, due to an electrical short circuit, and that he and his girlfriend had escaped, saving his laptop and papers, but he was burnt on much of one side, and was in hospital, waiting for surgery, wrapped in bandages like an ancient grey mummy.

After MistressDomina checked there wasn't any Twisted guild activity or any word of the Auzura Tomb of Theos being set at a more reasonable level, I switched across to MD's Cariae equivalent, my short-of-skill-points level 98 wizard Keerella... I had thought of fitting in a couple of pssp hours for MistressSabina in Maargadum Jail with the beast flyers, but the evening's Happy Hour, from six to ten UK time, had been pre-announced for a change, and was to be 75% extra experience and skill exp, which wouldn't have been much good for Sabina - but for Keerella, was tempting.

Keerella headed for the Tomb on Cariae-4, and began to farm the screaming zombies at the start; she had them alone most of the time. A solo party appeared fairly soon, and when I applied, I found it was the gamesage ADISA who was the leader, busy in the Floriam cave. With the Happy Hour the screamies gave 15,359,846 experience and 1732 skill exp, which was good, so while progress was still slow, it wasn't quite as slow as usual. When the "dungeon time" hour began at eight, the experience went up to 23,039,768 per screaming zombie, which can't be bad, unboosted.

ADISA left after a while, as did various other party members - ADISA hadn't "left" the party officially so her name was still there, if greyed out. She took over the forum shoutbox, which was good as she managed to calm down a few rather angry people that I hadn't had a great deal of luck with. I asked her if she had left the party for good or was coming back, and as she said she was gone now, I said I'd better "kick" her, which slightly surprised her as she hadn't realised she'd not formally departed, just logged out.

Finally by around nine there were just three of us left in the party, just Kee plus the level 97 titan Korath and the level 100 assassin dr12. Korath suggested that Keerella should change the party to the combat type, so I did - which changed my skill experience and skill exp amounts not at all. As I commented, you do have to be within compass range for the combat party to give its boost... so, when Korath said he was down with the anubis spear men, I decided I might as well run down that way.

Korath wasn't in the main spear man room, he was right at the last corner of the corridor before it gives way to one of the wider, column-lined stretches, fighting the spear men there, so I settled close to him, on the sphinx fighters...and soon saw that dr12 was in the column stretch, so that I could have them both on my compass-radar. They both moved in a little so that we were all three reinforcing each other.

I commented, when Korath said that I could take a couple of sphinx fighters off him as he hadn't touched them, that as the three of us weren't then using boosters, it didn't matter if we shared kills, and that inspired him to bring in as large a group of fighters and spear men as he could, and have me use my area of effect skills. I used my flame skills - and then, warning Korath as it has the side-effect of increasing its targets' attack, experimented with Chaos Nova too. It takes five times as long to recharge, at 30 seconds, but it does hit hard, and soon both Korath and dr12 were bringing in as many anubis spear men and sphinx fighters as they could, as well as the anubis attacker from the far end of the column stretch.

Since combat parties give out experience based on the damage you do, I may well have had the best of that, but it was fun, though I had to watch my health, and used a few large red candy canes (left over from last Christmas) to keep it up, when the 10% suction of life seemed slow to kick in. My drake took some damage; Korath, who reached level 98 during the battle, mentioned that his pet had been killed by the fighters, so this was his revenge.

Finally at about 9:45 Korath said that the current mob would be his last - I was more than ready to quit too, and dr12 chose that moment to lag out, so the timing was good. By then Keerella had added in all 6.05%, 35 skill points, and 3671 pet points for Greedo - who reached level 52 about halfway through the evening. Back in town that meant that another level of Greedo's magical power buff could be learnt, increasing Kee's magical attack by a further 1.

So, as Korath agreed, that had been a fun way to end the session.

In Better Condition - August 31st

I managed to have coffee a bit early today, and thus was able to fit in an hour for MistressSabina on the third floor of Maargadum Jail with the beast flyers before the "dungeon time" hour began. I even found a solo party right away, so things were pretty near perfect. I might possibly have missed out on a kill or two by making a few posts on the Last Chaos forum shoutbox, but when the hour was over, Sabina had added just 4.88%, while earning 141 skill points, and 998 pet points for her drake.

On the shoutbox, Dr.Jirri seemed in good spirits, with plans to walk around slowly with his arms outstretched, to make a pretty good impersonation of an Egyptian mummy. There was an announcement in-game of a 75% rebate offer on a couple of packages in the web item mall, but no evidence of such a deal in the actual mall, so one gamesage passed on a message about that... and talking about rebates, the aeria points used on those ten free loot wheel spins a week or so ago still haven't been refunded to anyone, it seems.

After lunch, MistressDomina asked in the guild chat channel about the Condition of the Tomb of Theos on Auzura, and was very relieved to hear that the Tomb had at last been suitably set. So, when the two to three o'clock "dungeon time" hour was approaching, MD was hurrying towards the anubis spear men. The first room was busy, and the first corner of the corridor linking it to the wider stretch with the columns - so I ended up on the third corner, which wasn't an ideal spot, as I did occasionally have a sphinx fighter coming in on me. Still, during the hour, with the pbi and usual three potions, MistressDomina put on 45.41%, using 44 experience boosters.

As MD was just in a solo party, getting 510,805,980 experience per kill, as opposed to at least 540 million if I'd had a combat party, it wasn't as huge a total as I might have managed with two computers running. A royal knight called Gluecksbaer was fighting close by, and killing remarkably quickly. He still had "LastChaos Newbie" in green over his head, so the character was less than a week old. He did mention later that he hadn't got a huge reserve of skill points, and was planning to farm some around level 100. By the end of his session he had reached level 85. I did say that it was possible to remove the Newbie title if one wished, but he is wearing it as a badge of honour.

The level 59 ranger-rogue nowomannocry had been in touch, since she'd got onto MD's Friends list, asking for help getting to level 60, so MD moved across to Auzura-5's Tomb once her pots were over, to join her. She opted for mummies rather than zombies, so I led her to the ancient grey mummies room, and let her "ks" me, but she complained that she was still getting very low experience. I discovered that she was only using a plus three bow - a level 57 one, rather than the 61 type she could equip. No wonder she was doing very little damage. She didn't seem to have any attack skills, and tried to assure me that Flame Arrow was an assassin skill. Even her Snare was only level three, so not very reliable.

Eventually we headed back to the start, though a screaming zombie en route did manage to kill her. She fought at the start for a while, along with the other people who were there - Gluecksbaer turned up there too, and there were quite a few familiar names from MD's previous sessions there, some now in higher-level armour than when last seen.

By the time MistressDomina had to leave, her total experience gain for the afternoon had reached 46.58%, so her unboosted time didn't add much. She had earned 7 skill points, and her drake got 1803 pet points.

I started off with a bit of a mistake after the food break. MistressSabina had hurried to the third floor of Maargadum Jail again on Auzura-4, arriving about ten minutes before the end of the "dungeon time" hour, and, seeing the place relatively tranquil, had begun fighting the beast flyers, equipped her drake, and started a platinum super skill pill...only after a minute to see that there was someone else fighting there, right at the far end. To my great relief though Kingschurk left after five minutes or so, and Sabina had the place to herself, for two long, busy hours. With the loss of health to watch out for and the frequent change of targets, it's exhausting work compared to fighting screaming zombies or anubis spear men, but the extra skill points are, hopefully, going to be very useful. During the first hour's pssp Sabina added 135 skill points, followed by 122 in the second hour. 9.04% experience was added, and, as double pet experience began when the dungeon time ended, 3838 pet points.

There was time to switch to Kaerella over on Katar-5, and reach Maargadum's second floor just as the new "dungeon time" hour was starting. The place got pretty busy, but Kae fought in all three of the rooms on that floor, and reached level 43, adding 24.17% during the hour, plus 71 skill points and 1264 pet points.

Back in Randol, Kaerella at last had enough stat points in Intelligence (17) to learn the level 38 skill Arrow of Silence. The first five levels, for 293 skill points (there are further levels at 53 and 63), mean using this skill can "silence" the enemy, stopping them from using attack skills for10 seconds, with a 70% chance of success. It also hits with a power of 290% of a normal shot, and as it only takes 6 seconds to recharge, can be rather effective, if it works. It's not a skill my archers use, generally, but it's useful to have it available. And thanks to the skill points she's been getting in Maargadum Jail, Kae's total stash of unused sp still remains above the 20k mark.

That was the end of the adventuring for today, but things had generally moved along quite well, particularly for MistressSabina with her three pssp hours. She is nearly halfway through level 46 now, so the number of future sessions with the beast flyers is starting to get a bit less intimidating. She may well fight them through level 47 as well, but if so, she'll do it with the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff to speed things up, and probably without the 50% experience freeze.